Two years ago, the discipline he learned during those formative summers in Atlanta came in handy when he served as a lead choreographer and co-creative director for Beyoncé’s HBCU marching band-inspired Coachella performance, which became the acclaimed Netflix concert film Homecoming. Even with a mask on, his joy in the memory is palpable.

“I mean, that is Beychella,” says Knight with a laugh a few weeks later, sitting outside a cafe in lower Manhattan in early October.

Those who specialize in them seldom succeed at anything else. To this day, he still remembers the mantra the entire band would repeat if anyone stepped out of line, and he recites it to me with a sudden ferocity that’s startling even over Zoom: “Excuses: Excuses are the tools of the incompetent used to build monuments of nothingness. As drum major, Knight arranged the intricate ensemble choreography and music - Luther Vandross, Stevie Wonder, a little Crime Mob to represent for ATL. Not just any band camp though - marching band camp in the South.Īlumni of his high school, who had gone on to attend historically Black colleges and universities, came home to train students all day under the relentless Georgia sun, drilling them in the precision needed to perform and move as one showstopping unit. When JaQuel Knight was a teenager in Atlanta, he spent his summers at band camp.

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